New CCC&TI facilities progress

The new building under construction at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute's transportation and public safety campus in Hudson is 60 percent complete and may open by mid-January, building and grounds committee chairman Tom Thuss told the college’s board of trustees Thursday.

The $1.6 million building will house the college’s emergency medical service and basic law enforcement training programs. The roof is completed, and work on brickwork and ductwork has begun, vice president of facility services Donnie Bassinger said.

Construction on the project, which began in July, is a “smidge” behind schedule, but not so much that staff members are concerned, Thuss said.

“Things are moving quicker now,” Bassinger said. “Unfortunately, we hit more rock than we ever thought about in a million years on this campus. They never thought we’d hit rock, but we hit a lot. It took forever to get our sewer line in.”

The transportation and public safety campus already houses several other departments, all transportation-related. The college’s long-range plan was always to consolidate its transportation and public safety offerings on that campus, a college spokesman told the News-Topic in April.

Also 60 percent complete is a $1.58 million facility on the college's Watauga County campus that will house the that campus’s continuing education program, which is currently housed off Bamboo Road in Boone, about a 15-minute drive from the main Watauga campus. That project is slated for completion at the end of January, Thuss said.